Show Me
by Charis M
Summary: "Their eyes are locked, their paces matched, and she thinks suddenly that this is intimate in an all too familiar fashion after all." Athos and Milady spar.
1. Chapter 1

**Show Me - Chapter 1**

 _Prompt fic for the same anon who asked for Downfall, who said, "I was intrigued when you mentioned Athos and Milady sparring together in your headcanon post- may I request a fic of that scenario?". This owes to elements of headcanon and character development from Never and Always, though the closest it gets to that fic is an alternate universe - can you AU your own AU? XD_

* * *

She's watched him fight before, both in earnest and sparring with other musketeers at the garrison, and for all that she may dismiss it aloud as overly honourable or even sometimes as dancing, that doesn't mean she won't admit (secretly though, never aloud) that he's damned good or that she doesn't enjoy watching him at it. It's clear that he takes pleasure in the act, revels in the test of skill, wits and bodies and blades, approaches it with a focussed intensity she remembers all too well –

It shouldn't make her breath hitch and her pulse speed – or it should, perhaps, but from adrenaline rather than a different and yet equally base emotion. And yet it does, precisely because she remembers that intense, unwavering focus, remembers what happened when he turned it on her, knows the narrowed intensity of his eyes and the satisfied curve of his mouth from a dance just as primal but wholly different.

The reaction unsettles her, at first. She's known, since the day she'd realised he'd unwittingly worked through her defences and made a home in her heart, that he was and will ever be her weakness, and to be reminded of it in such a physical and immediate way makes her want to lash out. When she does, though, deriding what he does as the kind of honourable idiocy that'll get him killed someday (and oh, that's a very real fear that she doesn't want to even consider, because she knew that reality for a brief heartstopping period and does not think she could stand that world again), he looks at her with stormcloud eyes and snaps back, "Then _show me_."

And so they come to this: in the shadows of the palace gardens, between the outer wall and an overgrown section rarely tended and more rarely frequented, blunted practise blades in hand, circling, testing, assessing. Their eyes are locked – eyes, after all, betray as little else can do on this field – their paces matched, and she thinks suddenly that this is intimate in an all too familiar fashion after all. Here, too, one body echoes the other, movement and breath and the pulse of blood all driven by the interplay.

He feints first, a testing thrust that takes advantage of his sword's longer reach, and she skitters back, out of the way. She's never fought fair, even (especially) as a child struggling to survive, and isn't about to start now, and so she has no qualms about giving ground to an ultimate gain. But he – he was raised to noble (stupid) ideals, and even if he's seen some of the darkness the world has to offer, he still persists in trying to hew to that line, and she hates him as much as she loves him for that misguided, misplaced notion.

He engages and she withdraws and he pursues, and this continues until she changes tactics abruptly, moves in rather than back when he next attacks, darts inside his guard to bring her knife up to his throat. He blocks at the very last instant, just manages to get his main gauche between, and for a moment they're pressed flush against each other, breathing the same air. She feels (or imagines she can, through all the layers of their clothes) his heart echoing the staccato beat of her own. (It's not the exertion making her pulse race, not this early – is that true for him too?)

She withdraws before he can trap her, moves back with a faintly disapproving sound. "Not paying attention will get you killed, captain," she taunts as she flips the blade in her grip, settles it more securely.

He only huffs faintly in response, but when his eyes find hers there's a fire there that wasn't present at the start – a fire that's different from the one she's seen in him when he's had a good spar at the garrison. This one she knows from days of summer sunlight and total abandon, days when they would come together at the flimsiest of pretexts, so lost in each other that the world could have burned down around them and they'd not have noticed. (This one she knows, and it makes her all too aware of how long it's been since she's had more of him than a kiss, than even one of those, and how much she _wants_. All the times she's watched him sparring before suddenly feel like the most voyeuristic bit of foreplay she's indulged in.)

But he's moving for her again, and it's in earnest now, as if before was just testing her measure, and she foregoes conscious thought in favour of just reacting, for the uncomplicated pleasure of the blood surging in her veins, adrenaline and exertion and the poetry of him, the fluid economy of his movements in this steel-limned duet. She can understand now why the others call him the best swordsman in France, in a way different from what she learned observing at a distance.

Back and forth, circling around – it's different fighting a swordsman in the open, and the longer it goes on the more she vows to avoid ever having to do this in reality. It would be different there anyway, but guns have no more place in a spar than the poisons and other assassin's tools she sometimes uses, and he has her at a distinct disadvantage. Was this a fight in truth she'd have fled by now, or scored him with some small poisoned blade and left him to die, but here it's just her and her dagger against an adversary that outmatches her in reach and strength, and instead she taunts, flits in and out, watches that fire blaze hotter as she deploys the tricks a restricted arsenal permits her and delights in this for what it is.

He scores a touch, then she does, hits that might have been significant in reality, but they're pulling blows and the agreement was that this ends when one or the other yields, and the further they go the less likely she thinks that'll be. They're both enjoying this far too much to want to stop, though perhaps they might be persuaded if –

His blade catches at her wrist, slews sideways, flips the dagger from her grip in a moment of distraction. It's his turn to grin at her, an expression of feral triumph, and she laughs despite herself and turns the tables, drawing her second blade from the folds of her skirts and rushing him, striking – low, high, a flurry meant to disorient – manages to rid him of his main gauche in the process. It's a success that proves her undoing, as he uses his freed hand to bind her up, catches her blade arm, twists it to pin her against him, and they're close again, so close, and suddenly the wall's behind her, cool against fevered skin, in contrast to the heat of his mouth as it crushes against hers, and god, she could sink into this so easily, but she's not about to give up and yield and so she _bites_ , teeth closing on his lip harder than she might otherwise –

"Damn you, woman!" he roars, yanking free and shoving her away. As furious as the words are the heat in his eyes is blazing now, the fire rising and the storm threatening to break any moment, and she knows it's not just anger – knows it's mostly _not_ , after that moment pressed together. "I did warn you I wouldn't play fair," is all she says though, as she licks the blood off her mouth and smirks. This is turning out to be far more interesting than she'd imagined possible.

* * *

 _(And then things got hot and dirty up against the wall THE END. XD;; )_

 _As always, you can find me on Tumblr as myalchod._


	2. Chapter 2

**Show Me - Chapter 2  
**

 _Apparently I decided to make good on that end note after all ... (It only took, what, eight months?) So this is now a two-shot but no more clear in terms of timeline or framing._

* * *

She can't decide if this means neither of them has won, or if they both have.

She got him to stop fighting properly, and surely that's a point in her favour. But he'd rid her of her second poniard in a dazzling flurry of steel, and she finds herself backed into the wall once again in short order, the tip of his rapier just grazing her throat, and -

"Yield," he demands; his eyes are full of fire, his hair curling darker with sweat. She licks her lips, wanting to taste him to see if she remembers it right, the tang of salt and skin and _him_ , and watches his gaze dip to her mouth, back up, and though he swallows convulsively his hand does not so much as tremble.

That moment's weakness is her only window; she's unlikely to get another unless she changes the game. And so she wraps her fingers around the blunt-edged practice sword, pushes it aside and tugs in a single motion. He's not expecting it, clearly - the blade skids wide before grounding against the wall beside her shoulder but she pays it no heed, far more intent on swallowing up Athos' startled exclamation.

(There it is.)

She lets the blade go in favour of plunging both hands into his hair, holding him steady while she explores his mouth, tastes, takes, _devours_ \- it's been too long, and this dance has fired her blood and she wants to crawl into his skin, to be close as breath, to remember and rediscover and forget everything all at once, and from the way he kisses her back it seems the feeling is mutual. She's dimly aware of his sword falling to the ground, but only inasmuch as it frees his hands in turn - one to pull her closer yet, the other tangling into her loose braid and tugging her head back, changing the angle so that he can wrest control of the kiss from her. It becomes a duel in turn, a new battleground: tongues sparring, teeth clicking, scraping against lips bruised tender and swollen by the ferocity of need. She tastes blood (his, from before) and with her adrenaline already high it just makes her want this, want _him_ , all the more.

 _This_ is what they've been building to, not just today but in the weeks of dancing around each other, since her return to Paris and even before, and the fire she'd kindled months ago to destroy their old home is proving nothing to the fire humming in her veins, building since that moment they'd nearly burned together with it. The stone against her back is doing nothing to cool her now - if anything, she's surprised it hasn't somehow managed to ignite - and it's just as well when she wants nothing of the sort. She _wants_ to burn, and she hooks a leg around his to urge him closer still, cants her hips so she can feel him press against her through her skirts and his leathers, hot and hard and _god_ , why are they wearing so many clothes -?

She must have said it aloud, if Athos' breathless chuckle against her mouth is anything to go by. She nips hard at his lip in retaliation, but not _too_ hard because his hands are busy rucking up her skirts and she doesn't want to distract him when he's working to give them both what they want. The laugh blurs into a groan as she untangles one hand from his hair, drops it down to work the buttons of his breeches free, unknots his drawers and shoves them open impatiently before he bats her away. Before she can so much as formulate a protest his hands are back on her hips, lifting her up and bracing her, and she leans back against the unyielding stone and revels in the feel of him sinking into her, still familiar after all these years. In this, in the friction and urgency and the slick slide of flesh against flesh, nothing has changed. In this, perhaps more than anything else, she still knows _him_.

And yet they had been gentle once, a lifetime ago, and this act has little of gentleness to it. There are his teeth hard against her exposed collarbones, her hands so tight in his hair it must be painful, their bodies slamming together hard enough to bruise. She is under no illusions that she will be sore after, within and without, but she _wants_ that, revels in the idea as much as she'd delighted in their earlier duel, knowing she is leaving her own marks on him in turn, deeper than skin. This is about restaking claims, body and soul; this is about a battle both of them have lost, and won. This is about more than she wants to acknowledge, more than she wants to admit, and in an effort to purge those thoughts from her mind she pushes against him harder, turns her head and presses her mouth against his ear, hisses her demand - harder, faster, _more_ \- before biting, and feels his body convulse against hers and inside hers and damn, _damn_ , she's close but not close enough to follow, not when he's stilling, weight pinning her tightly against the wall, and she thinks she could kill him right now if she still had a blade for daring to leave her unsatisfied like this, just short of completion.

She's swearing against his skin when he raises his head to look at her, a litany of threats and invective, and he laughs again - _laughs_ , damn him, low and heated, and she shoves him away, thinking only of getting a hand between them to finish herself off, but when she reaches down he's already in the way again and her protest dies in a high whine as he hooks one leg over his shoulder and buries his face between her thighs. She remembers this too, the heat of his mouth and the shivering ache, one hand digging bruises into her thigh as he holds her open and licks into her, the contrast between agile tongue and sword-callused fingers and the rasp of his beard against sensitive flesh - remembers and then for a breathless, blinding eternity remembers nothing at all.

"That was not yielding," she manages when she can shape words again. Her trembling legs will not support her, so she leans back against the wall and gazes down at him still kneeling there before her. His beard is damp; if she were to kiss him, she would taste them both on his lips. The thought brings with it a coil of heat, languid now in the wake of orgasm. If this was Pinon, she'd have pushed away from the stone, settled into his lap and pinned him to the earth and taken all those lazy contemplations to their natural conclusion until they were both utterly spent, but they are not those people and this is not the sunlit field of those softer days. (She doesn't know what to call this. She's not sure she _wants_ to try to name it, when naming is knowing and knowing would be dangerous, might open doors she's not sure either of them is ready to breach.)

He rolls his shoulders back, stretching them as he climbs to his feet. He looks more steady than she feels, but there's something in his eyes as they skitter away from hers that echoes her own uncertainties and makes her think neither of them is anything of the sort. Whatever her intent here had originally been, this end is nothing she planned - and yet, misgivings or not, she cannot regret any of it.

But the mood is changed, the ease of both sparring and sex disrupted by this lull. She misses it already, wishes there was a way to turn things back, but there is no reversing the course of time - and she is not fool enough to think so, even if she has been a fool for him before and will no doubt be so again. But she has never been the one to look away, and so she just continues to watch him as he sets his clothes to rights before retrieving their discarded blades. "No victor, then," he says as he offers her poniards to her. The words are drawled out, a verbal smirk for all that his face betrays nothing, and the air lightens a little with them.

She steps forward, pauses for a moment before him - weighing, considering - before moving past as if it were nothing. "Keep them for now," she tosses over her shoulder, never stopping, never turning. "I'll be back for a rematch."


End file.
